On Monday, Republican opposition to Obamacare went from the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous. After the right-wing Weekly Standard protested the Department of Health and Human Services' outreach activities to churches, Fox News host Steve Doocy complained that the HHS enrollment flyers, bulletins and enrollment events constituted a "violation of the separation of church and […]
Category: Bush Admin.
Even as Islamic State fighters battle Iraqi forces in western Iraq near a base where hundreds of American troops are currently stationed, the government in Baghdad is facing a new crisis. On Friday, Sunni tribal leader Sheik Qasim al-Janabi, his son and six bodyguards were killed by unidentified Shiite militiamen in Baghdad. In the aftermath […]
"The bottom line, however, is that the mistakes...were just that," Dick Cheney announced to the nation, "mistakes in judgment, and nothing more." There was no constitutional crisis, no systematic disrespect for ''the rule of law,'' no grand conspiracy, and no Administration-wide dishonesty or coverup. In fact, the evidence will not support any of the more […]
Like most Americans, I was horrified to learn about the shocking brutality contained in the declassified Senate torture report. Under a legal edifice erected by the Bush administration, CIA interrogators subjected terror detainees to large scale, state-sanctioned sadism. Thanks to these horrors perpetrated in all of our names, terms of art like "rectal hydration" and […]
As Dick Cheney and the usual suspects circle the wagons to defend the Bush Torture Team, one its most notorious members has been particularly active in rhetorically waterboarding the Senate torture report. On Tuesday, John Yoo, who at the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel defined torture as "in intensity to the pain accompanying […]
After five years and $40 million, a declassified version of the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report may finally be released next week. But in advance of its arrival, the CIA's former head of clandestine services has resurfaced again to declare the report "an egregious falsehood" and "a dishonest attempt to rewrite history." Of course, that […]
After months of delays, President Obama is poised to finally take executive action to address the crisis of America's 11 million undocumented immigrants, 85 percent of whom are estimated to have lived in the United States for at least five years. Relying on the same authority presidents of both parties have used for over 70 […]
A growing number of Republican senators are suggesting they will block the nomination of Loretta Lynch over the issue of "executive amnesty." If so, then no choice President Obama might make for attorney general could possibly be confirmed by the new GOP-controlled Senate. After all, the next head of the Justice Department will obviously agree […]
Just in time for Veteran's Day, former President George W. Bush is promoting a new book dedicated to his father's military service. As part of his PR swing, Bush explained that he has only one regret about his 2003 invasion of Iraq. Unsurprisingly, Dubya's sole lament is not for the enormous cost in American blood […]
In the wake of the GOP's triumph in last week's midterm election, conservative commentators are demanding President Obama and his Democratic allies abandon their agenda and submit to the will of the new Republican majority. "The chastened President," Peggy Noonan lectured, should "reach out, be humble," but instead is "doubling down on hostility, antagonism and […]